When Shatner was cast to play Captain James Kirk in the "Star Trek" TV show, his small-screen immortality was assured (even though no one knew it at the time). The solidly built, handsome actor had previously worked on Broadway and in live TV before making his movie debut as Alexei in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). Shatner alternated film appearances with episodic TV work; his other early features include Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), The Outrage (1964), and leading roles in The Explosive Generation and the barely seen The Intruder (both 1961), in which he delivered a mature, spine-chilling performance as a racist Southern agitator for director Roger Corman. The immediate post-"Trek" years brought Shatner few opportunities from the major studios, and by the mid 1970s he was toiling in Big Bad Mama (1974), The Devil's Rain (1975), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), and The Kidnapping of the President (1980). Beginning with 1979's Star Trek-The Motion Picture Shatner returned to the role he made famous on TV, and has appeared in the five bigbudget sequels (even directing 1989's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier He's shown an ability to spoof himself in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I (1993), but he's played it straight in his post-"Trek" TV series, "Barbary Coast" (1975-76), "T.J. Hooker" (1982-87), and "Rescue 911" (1989-1996). He published "Star Trek Memories" in 1993, and has written a series of science fiction novels called "Tekwar" which were adapted for TV in 1994. He costarred in the seventh Star Trek movie, Star Trek Generations (1994).

Currently he can be seen as Denny Crane on the ABC dramedy, "Boston Legal" which started in the fall of 2004. He played the part of Denny Crane during the final arc of the David E. Kelley drama "The Practice" which set up the fictional law firm of Crane, Poole, & Schmidt which is featured on "Boston Legal". Also in 2006 he hosted the short-lived ABC gameshow, "Show Me the Money".

Won two Emmys for his role as Denny Crane, first as a guest star The Practice and the second as a Supporting Actor in Boston Legal.He was born only four days before his "Star Trek" co-star, Leonard Nimoy.William Shatner is a vegetarian.William Shatner owns a 360 acre horse farm near Lexington,Kentucky.William Shatner has been married four times (Gloria Rand, Marcy Lafferty, Nerine Kidd, and Elizabeth Martin). He is the father of three daughters (Lisabeth, Melanie, and Leslie). Mr. Shatner also has two grandchildren (Eric and Grant). He met his present wife Elizabeth through a mutual love of horses and loss of a loved one. Mr. Shatner was widowed by the death of third wife Nerine and Elizabeth had lost a brother to cancer. Married since 2001, William Shatner and Elizabeth live in Southern California.Owns a 360 acre ranch in Versailles, Kentucky as well as several horses. He enjoys riding them, hiking and camping.Shatner suffers from tinnitus as a result of an accident on the set while shooting the Star Trek episode "Arena", and is involved in the American Tinnitus Association. His treatment for this condition involved wearing a small electronic device that generated a low-level, broadband sound (white noise) that "helped his brain put the tinnitus in the background".In 2006, Shatner sold his kidney stone for US $25,000 to GoldenPalace.com.